Deckboy v0.88.0

Text mode is an effect, so it works on anything

The character grid is no longer part of the video synth. Put TEXT MODE on
a clip, a capture card, a camera, a browser cue or a still, and it draws as
characters — the same grid, the same glyph sets, the same phosphors, on
whatever the cue happens to be.

A cue carrying the effect gets its own TEXT MODE section in the inspector with
the full set of controls: columns, glyph set, shuffle, ink, custom glyphs,
phrases and phrase hold. Four of them — columns, corruption, glyph set and ink
— are also effect parameters, so the ones worth grabbing mid-set sit on faders
and can take an LFO.

Its amount is a mix, not a switch. At 1.0 the grid replaces the picture;
part way it sits over the original like a screen door, which is where a lot of
the best-looking settings turn out to be.

Bring your own characters and your own words

Text mode takes a custom alphabet and a list of phrases:

• custom glyphs — the characters the picture is built from, darkest first.
  Two characters gives binary rain; a word gives that word as texture;
  box-drawing pieces read as a schematic.
• phrases — words separated by |, one showing at a time, landing
  somewhere new each time it moves. phrase hold sets the dwell.

Over the wire as ASCII ON|OFF|TOGGLE, ASCII GLYPHS, ASCII PHRASES and
ASCII HOLD, with Companion actions for all of it.

The code source is a language now

It reads like code because it is. Name values, build on them, and end with what
the channels should be:

ox = sin(t)*0.55;
oy = cos(t*0.8)*0.4;
d  = length(cx-ox, cy-oy);
glow = smoothstep(0.45, 0.0, d);
glow, glow*0.35, 1-glow*0.6

Named values are also faster: a distance used by three channels is computed
once rather than three times. A source with no semicolon in it is exactly the
one-line form, so everything already written keeps working and keeps meaning
the same thing.

Seven more functions — length, smoothstep, if, sign, exp, log,
atan — and the editor grew to match: Shift+Enter for a new line, the
field sized to the lines in it, your own names syntax-coloured as names, and
six worked examples that start from the statement form. The helper alongside
it is set in a bigger, brighter face and explains each function as you reach
for it.

VJ mode has a switch

Settings → System → SHOW FLOW, at the top: one deck and a playlist, or two
decks and a crossfader.

The creatures come out when you want them

The switch is three-state: off, when idle, or always. "When idle"
stays the default and keeps the chrome still during a show; "always" is for
anyone who would rather have them there regardless.

Steadier through long sessions

The video synth holds a flat memory footprint however long a cue stays live,
and runs at full frame rate at 4K. Text mode renders at 60fps on a 4K raster.